Rain Robinson
by The Kobayashi Maru
Summary: Because I think a ditzy twentieth century scientist is exactly what Voyager needed. "Future's End" Rain Robinson joins the recurring cast of Voyager characters.


Alright, nice to see you all. I was watching Future's End today and my mom mentioned, "They should have kept the ditzy chick. It would have made Voyager so much more interesting". I agreed, so this is the result.

* * *

**Rain Robinson**

_Because I think a ditzy twentieth century scientist is exactly what Voyager needed. "Future's End" Rain Robinson joins the recurring cast of Voyager characters._

_

* * *

_

**Chapter One: Future's End** (**Season 3, Episode 9**)

* * *

"Chakotay to Paris," Tom's cell phone began to speak on its own again. "What's your status?"

"We're fine," Tom replied casually. "Good shooting," he complimented the man who called himself Chakotay like it wasn't a big deal that he just blew up a transport truck with a... what was that?

They stood in silence for a long moment, staring at the remains of the truck that had the _Time Ship_.

"Mr Paris, stand by," the phone informed them, "we're bringing you aboard."

"Acknowledged," Tom replied. Rain stared, wondering how in the world they were just going to _bring him aboard_ their spaceship.

She said to him, "You're spaceship is waiting."

He leaned in towards her and she stared into his eyes. "I've never met anyone like you," he said, "and I don't think I ever will."

"Then take me with you," she replied impulsively. "This doesn't have to be goodbye."

Tom shook his head. "No," he said. "Where I'm going… I can't take you."

"You don't know that," she replied. "I'm an astronomer, Tom. I can't just go back to watching the stars when I know I had the chance to join them."

He sighed. "I know… but…"

A blue light appeared, and just as impulsively as she made the initial suggestion, she grabbed hold of Tom.

The world flickered.

She was on the tiny spaceship. It was smaller than it looked on the outside and very dark. Tom immediately began to insist at the woman in yellow to _transport_ her back, but the woman told him, "We can do that after we deal with Starling," snappily. "He's probably already headed into orbit."

Tom sat down in the pilot's chair and Rain watched the window in wonderment as they casually flew into space.

There was a large ship in orbit, and Rain realized she should have expected that the little ship was from a bigger one. USS Voyager. "That's military," she mumbled.

The woman with the yellow on her uniform stared at her. "We're from the future," she said plainly, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"I thought you were aliens in disguise or something…" Rain defended herself.

The woman laughed and Rain noticed her forehead for the first time. "We aliens don't really like to beam down to Earth past… too troublesome" she shot Tuvok a look, "except Vulcans. Vulcans, for all their logic," she gave a playful smile, "seem to love visiting Earth before warp technology."

"There have been very few instances of Vulcans on Earth before First Contact, Lieutenant," Tuvok replied as unemotional as ever. "Eighty-five point seven percent of those instances were caused by time-travel. In fifty-seven percent of those instances, the Vulcan was Ambassador Spock."

The alien woman gave him a dry look. "I was kidding, Tuvok."

They were inside a shuttle bay of some sort. The group climbed out of the shuttle and Tom took Rain's hand and led her into an elevator. "Bridge," Tom said. She was about to comment, but Rain heard the elevator begin to move. It was voice-activated. Figures.

It ran smoother than an elevator, and if she didn't know better she'd think that it wasn't moving at all. The door slid open and it revealed a very dark _bridge_. Everybody who was in the elevator with her had moved to different areas of the room swiftly, as if it was second nature. "Welcome to the bridge, Doctor," Tom said. Rain blinked. ("It's a pleasure to be here.") Has the doctor ever been here before? "You too, Rain."

An Asian man in a yellow uniform turned around and looked at them. "The Captain isn't going to be very happy with her," he said.

"Status," the man called Chakotay said.

"Captain is in torpedo tube one. She's preparing for a manual launch," the Asian informed him and walked to another part of the room and began to do something, but Rain didn't know what.

The Doctor walked at the elevator and then turned back. "How exactly do I get to torpedo tube one?" he asked.

"Ensign Capman, go with him."

"Aye sir," said the woman behind Tuvok.

Rain leaned over to Tuvok and asked, "Is he new here or something?"

"The time ship is powering its temporal field generator. Starling will be able to open a rift within seconds," he said, the more quietly and quickly he told her, "The Doctor is a hologram. The majority of the ship is not equipped with holographic emitters. He cannot leave sickbay."

"So that's what he was talking about earlier?" she questioned. "With the footloose and fancy free comment? Why doesn't the ship have _emitters_ everywhere if the Doc needs them."

"The ship was not designed for holograms. I am very busy now, Miss Robinson. Please be quiet and do not bother any other personnel."

"If he enters the rift like this the time ship will create a temporal explosion," the alien woman said.

Tuvok replied to her, "Events are occurring just as Captain Braxton predicted." Rain was completely confused. Who was Braxton? Why would the Time Ship create an explosion? "Disaster may well be inevitable."

"Fate, Tuvok?" Chakotay asked. "I won't accept that." Rain figured he must be in charge at that moment, because of the way he was doing nothing but talking while everyone else was on computers. "Close to within ten kilometers. We'll ram him if we have to." And, apparently, the metric system does catch on.

"Aye sir," said Tom.

"Janeway to bridge," a female voice came out of nowhere. Rain looked around for any cellphones like the ones she'd seen, but there were none. It seemed to be an inter-ship communication. "I've got the torpedoes reconfigured for manual launch. Arm the torpedoes."

Tuvok began to press buttons. "Torpedoes armed."

"Lock on target," she said.

"Lock on target," Tuvok repeated.

"Hail Starling," said Chakotay.

"On screen."

The other ship appeared on the window, which Rain realized was merely a screen.

"This is Voyager," said Chakotay. "Pull away from the rift."

"Or what?" asked Starling. Rain blinked. They had torpedoes. Wasn't he scared? "Your weapons are down, friend. See you… sometime." Their weapons weren't down, though. How would he know they were? He disappeared, leaving a view of stars.

"Chakotay to Janeway. Captain, we have no other choice."

"He's entering the rift."

There was a second of silence, then, "Fire!"

A little orange light fired at the Time Ship and Rain asked, "Is that a torpedo?"

"Yep," said Tom. "A Photon Torpedo."

The rift exploded.

"Oh," she said.

A woman in red sped out of the elevator, half of her face burned and bleeding, followed closely by the doctor with a strange, beeping device. Everything beeped on the ship. She wondered how the future people didn't all go crazy. "The bridge is yours, Captain." Rain stared. That's the Captain?

"Is there a chance in hell we can reopen that rift?" she asked.

"Captain…" the Asian man said, "the rift is opening."

"There's something coming out. It's the time ship."

"Let's see it."

"We are being hailed."

"On screen."

A new man appeared on the screen in the same environment they had seen before. Rain moved into the background, not sure if the man could see her on his own viewer.

"Captain Braxton."

"Do you know me?" the man asked. Rain blinked. They had mentioned him before.

"Yes," said Chakotay. "Unfortunately."

"You tried to destroy our ship in the twenty-fourth century," the Captain told him. Rain blinked. That little ship had tried to destroy this giant thing? "The next time we saw you, you were an old man, homeless, in nineteen nighty-six."

"I never experienced that timeline," he said, as if this was all an everyday occurrence. Rain was just happy that the Captain woman hadn't noticed her yet.

"Then what are you doing here?" Tom asked.

"In my century we can scan time, much as you use sensors to scan space." So this man was from even further into the future? It was giving Rain a headache. "The Temporal Integrity Commission detected your vessel over twentieth century Earth. I was sent to correct that anomaly. Prepare to follow me back into the rift. I'm returning you to your own time, do your previous co-ordinates, in the Delta Quadrant."

Everybody's face fell. "Captain," Janeway approached the screen, "we've been trying to get home to Earth for the past two years. Can you return us to our century, but keep us here. In the Alpha Quadrant." How far was the Delta Quadrant? Rain wondered. Would she get to see it or would they drop her back on Earth.

"I'm sorry," said the man. "Temporal Prime Directive. I'm afraid you're on your own. Braxton out."

There was a long moment of silence.

"The time ship is re-entering the rift."

"Mr Paris… follow him in," she ordered.

"We're forgetting something," Tom said, gesturing to Rain.

Janeway noticed her for the first time and sighed. "You could have mentioned that before, Mr Paris. We can't just go back into transporter range and send someone down. Braxton will likely take that as resistance and fire on us."

"He's in the future already, Captain."

"Who's to say he won't come back?"

"I can come," Rain said, disliking being talked about as if she wasn't there.

Janeway sighed. "Temporal Prime Directive," she said.

Tom shrugged. "She's already seen too much. Might as well… Admiral Kirk did it, once."

"Admiral Kirk had just saved the world," the Asian stated. "And they needed a whale biologist."

Janeway sighed. "We've wasted too much time, anyways. We'll just have to take her. Lets' go."

"Aye Captain."

They did.

"Tuvok, assign some quarters to our new member of the Voyager crew," Janeway said as they passed through. "Recommend some reading material. She has a lot to catch up on."

"And a lot of time to do it before we get home," Tom said with a sigh. "That'll be the last we see of home for a long time."


End file.
